## [27 September 1921]

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**[LENIN'S NOTE]**

Report for 1 July 1921 "Activities of the Chief Land Administration" published in *Economic Life* no. 211, 22 September 1921.

Ц. 169С7

29.IX. 1921

Comrade Gorbunov!

The importance of the matter set forth in the attached documents is beyond question.

The exemplary work of a number of state farms under the Chief Land Administration has been fully clarified and demonstrated, in my opinion, by our press: through articles by Belyakov in the *Izvestia*, Sosnovskiy in *Pravda* and a number of other articles and reports. Comrade Muralev, a competent person, also reports on the outstanding work of Comrade Runov, who heads this undertaking. The principled significance of this successful construction of genuinely proletarian agriculture is enormous.

The practical significance is no less, if not greater.

Therefore I request that you prepare this matter in the most urgent order for the [Small] SNK today (currency notes) and for the STO tomorrow (place it on the agenda, make the necessary telephone inquiries, etc.).

Pres. SNK V. Ulyanov (Lenin).

P.S. If there is no other way, it is necessary to provide what is requested (in the *maximum* sum) as a loan for one year. These people have earned confidence a thousand times over.

Lenin.

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**NOTES ON A LETTER FROM L. MIKHAILOV**

[27 September 1921]

Dear Vladimir Ilyich!

Today, 23 September, on a large plot of land we tested our first electric plow put into service. From all sides I heard compliments addressed to it, well-deserved compliments, since it ploughs, I would say, with elegant ease, one desyatina in an hour and will plough even more in that same hour.

Approximately two years ago an elementary thought was born in my head—to emancipate the Petrograd population from imported vegetables and to spare our railroads from the shame of transporting to Petrograd thousands of carloads of water—water because it comprises 80% of the content of vegetables. I stood firm in my conviction, as a result of which we obtained a vegetable garden area of some 9000 desyatinas right in Petrograd itself, supplying all residents of Petrograd, including the child population, with vegetables for 6–7 months around the year, calculated at 2 poods per person.

But why not go further, why not create our own agricultural operations around the major centers, reducing the city's dependence on the countryside, I asked myself. Why not raise the waste lands lying around the cities, why not plow this virgin soil? And, having convinced myself that Petrograd's cable network makes it possible, without harm to its primary work, to plow tens of thousands of desyatinas of land for field crops using electric current, I announced a competition for an "electric plow."

After prolonged physical and moral suffering, this plow has been created. I shall not tire you with arithmetical calculations that would give this plow an excellent attestation. I know that this is not the final word in technique, and I shall be the first to insist that its further manufacture be halted when a new, more successful invention prevails over it, but for now everything must be set in motion so that by early spring 1922 at least 20 sets of this machine have been made. A machine not complex, but offering great possibilities for Yekaterinburg, Samara, Kharkov, Moscow, and so on.

Only you can do this.

You were the only one who understood me from two or three words and never left my letters to you on this subject unattended. Only you will be able to ensure that the "electric plow" does not become an object of careerism, that what has already been created is not destroyed and that obstacles do not arise that impede the success of every undertaking, even the simplest; that work on new themes assigned by me does not halt—themes assigned, true, not by a technician or engineer, but by a mathematician, yet timely nonetheless and easily realizable.

You know, of course, that I have been appointed "plenipotentiary" of our long-suffering RSFSR in Norway.

My graying head is full of all sorts of plans, among which an important place is occupied by the thought of persuading Western European capitalists and production cooperatives to revive our vast land holdings lying fallow... Such concessions interest not only us but all of Western European bourgeoisie as well...

...But here I struggle and struggle to obtain a list of such holdings, and I cannot obtain it anywhere...

My request to you is to propose to the appropriate person to enrich me with these, not at all secret, information.

I usually live in Moscow at M. I. Kalinin's house...

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*The last two paragraphs are crossed out by Lenin. — Editor.*